


Coming Full Circle

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: The Game [16]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of trauma, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Family Dynamics, Loss of a Child (perceived), Marriage Planning, Reconciliation, Semi-Graphic Descriptions of Murder, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:57:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8110228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: “She has my eyes.” He whispers, as if breathing out a great secret, and—inexplicably—she feels a long-awaited rush of pure relief crash over her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It occurs to me how random the tags for this segment are, but this one swings on the pendulum a couple times, so I suppose it's fitting.

The island is a tourist paradise: all white sand beaches, miles of sparkling blue water, and enough alcohol to make a town full of happy drunks. The locals make their livings off people coming here: idiots who stuff themselves to the brim on rich food, buy trinkets that will sit around the house collecting dust, and gamble what little money they have left in the casinos. As such, locals are more than happy to help a tourist in need. They are also happy to help a tourist who isn’t in need, just to share their vat of information whether it is or isn’t wanted.

Iris made reservations at a suitably lavish hotel, not necessarily for the accommodations, but for the discrete staff and reassurance of privacy. That being said, the accommodations are certainly nothing to scoff at: the suite opens up on one wall in large paned windows, offering an ocean view to be admired, and the furnishings offer every luxury available. This is exactly the sort of place one comes to relax, to unwind, to release all their burdens and stresses and cast cares away on the beach, or in the comfort of a down-feather mattress with a good book while the ocean sings a little tune outside an open window.

Two days after they arrive, the nightmares start.

It begins with a familiar scene, one he’s endured before: the disembodied vision of a boat cast about by merciless waves, a storm churning black clouds above and smiting all below with vicious bolts of lightning that slice into the boat like a blade through flesh. He hears screams. He hears someone crying. And then he sees the boat split in two, then three, then six pieces, scattered across the waves like dissected body parts. He’s seen how it ends before: two bodies floating lifeless on the settling tide. He waits to see it, waits for this to be over so he can wake up.

He sees two bodies, but not the ones he expects. These are of a young woman, dark hair limp and diluted like ink stains, and the little girl held loosely in her dead arms, with skin drained of color and golden locks ruined by the storm.

_No. No. **No.**_

He tries to get to them. He tries to run. He tries to swim. He tries to do the impossible and fly. He can’t. He remains locked in place, bound as if by invisible chains, and the sea swallows them both without regret. Someone screams, unleashing rage to match the storm which stole two lives as though they were nothing. As though their lives were worthless. As though—

His eyes fly open. Both lungs are struggling for their next breath, and his throat feels raw. He’s shaking violently, stomach clenching and twisting, and he feels as though there is an invisible enemy to fight off. One who has their arms wrapped tight around him, holding him down, imprisoning him, and he must fight. He must free himself. He must—

“Shhh…breathe, Victor, breathe. Calm down. Calm down.”

_Iris._ His hands blindly find her in the dark, clutching at skin and cloth until there is no space between them. Until she is woven around him, protective as a casket, and his forehead is buried in the reassuring embrace of her pulse. Her voice is soft in his ear, her skin is warm and alive against him, and her scent surrounds him in glorious familiarity.

She settles back into sleep, but he doesn’t. He stays awake, stays in this place where she is alive and real and with him. It is the only safe place, now that dreams have once again become his enemy.

*** 

The next three nights, the nightmares come and go, dissolving from one into another, until he is left with no other option but to forgo sleep entirely. Insomnia isn’t the closest of companions—he rather dislikes it, actually, for what it does to his ability to focus and concentrate—but he makes it a frequent visitor for favor over the other option.

Iris says nothing. He supposes she’s trying to give him space, or some similarly rational reason, but logic is a foreign language to his sleep-deprived mind. He looks at her, hears silence in place of reassuring words, sees her reclining in the far corner, and he hears walls building between them, sees her putting physical distance between them. He sees the end before it’s the beginning.

By the fourth night, he can’t stand it anymore.

The last time he drank whiskey was during his 21st birthday—a taste-tester, if you will—and he quickly decided it wasn’t his preference. The burn is too hot, the taste too bitter, and it’s not exactly a gentleman’s drink. Whiskey is the drink seen in cheap dives and hotel bars. A gentleman, as his father demonstrated, prefers wine and martinis. He’s personally a patron of red wine.

But, as luck would have it, whiskey is the first thing he sees on the shelf behind the bar, and his brain is past the point of seeking additional options. He tells the bartender to leave the bottle. Wasting a glass is pointless, at this stage. The fifty dollar bill he throws down keeps the older man from objecting, and another twenty earns him privacy while he tosses one drink after another down his throat.

There’s a family nearby: the perfect American portrayal of familial values, with two little ones scurrying about and their parents watching with affection. The urge to eviscerate the husband and strangle his wife collides violently with the urge to reach out and touch the little girl, to see if her skin is just as soft and her scent is the same and her voice—

“Daddy!” she calls, throwing herself into the man’s lap. “You read me bedtime story, right? Promise, promise!”

Daddy. _Read to me, Daddy._

_You promised, Daddy._

He takes another drink.

***

By the time Iris finds him, it’s been three hours and two bottles of whiskey on an empty stomach. He should be rather disgusted with himself, at such a blatant lack of self-control and composure, evidenced by the way he’s slumped, half-conscious, over the countertop with clothes in relative disarray and only his grip on the second whiskey bottle keeping him upright.

He should be, but that part of his brain, along with the rest of it, has been drowned in whiskey and is presently unavailable for consultation.

Iris half-carries, half-drags him from the bar to the elevator, then down the hall to their suite. A couple times, he sees her shoot poisonous glares at nosy passerby; likewise, she snaps at a pair of old ladies gossiping shamelessly in the elevator, making a promise of direct violence for which he could just kiss her.

She settles him in the bathroom, and—despite his protests on the matter—assists him in the bath. He’d rather take a cold shower, but Iris was rather blunt in reminding him that trying to stand in a wet area (when he can’t even walk upright) would sooner earn him a concussion than get him clean.

He lasts five more minutes, fumbling gracelessly with the soap while she sits quietly nearby. And then he can’t take it anymore.

“Touch me.” He whispers; his voice sounds like sandpaper. At least it gets her attention.

“Where?”

“Anywhere,” because, really, he isn’t selective right now, “My hand. My face. Anywhere. _Everywhere_. I don’t care how you do it or why you do it, just…”

His voice trails; his body seems to curl inward, simultaneously pressing toward something and trying to escape from the same thing. He’s only felt this lack of control once in his life, and it feels as crippling as it did then. Too much. Too much. _Make it stop._ “…Iris, _please_ …”

“Shhh…” she breathes, soft in his ear, and her arms are around him again, cocooning him in warm skin and her scent. If she notices the dampening of clothes from his wet limbs locked around her, she says nothing.

***

He spends most of the next few days in bed, locked in a spiral of depression—rendering him physically incapable of movement beyond turning one side to the other—and violent urges to feel blood on his hands and drink in screams like fine champagne. His skin crawls. His heart palpitates to the point he thinks it might actually give out. His head spins constantly and leaves him nauseous. The mere thought of food clenches his gut, and the only hydration he gets is from a water glass Iris halfway forces down his throat.

She’s worried. No, frightened. Frightened because she doesn’t know what to do with him, or how to make him willingly restore his personal wellbeing. Under her care, he manages to keep one foot out of Death’s door, but through no will and effort of his own. Life has lost its meaning, its purpose…everything.

_Pathetic_ , a voice whispers from some distant corner of his conscious. He knows it speaks true, and all the worse that he doesn’t care. Well, he does, but not for long. Caring requires too much energy.

***

The seventh night, he’s awakened by the absence of Iris’ skin against him, and the cold emptiness of a bed. Energy returns to him, enough to sit upright, eyes urgently searching a room equally empty, ears straining for a breath, a whisper of movement from the corner, anything, _anything_ at all…

Nothing.

Then the suite door opens. Iris gets three steps in the door before he slams her against it. The resulting noise probably wakes up half the guests, but his ears seize only the startled cry tumbling off her lips, and his eyes only see her fear. Afraid. She’s afraid of him. She’s been afraid once before—maybe more, and she’s just never demonstrated it so openly—but tonight, it radiates off her skin and burns him like fire.

“Victor—”

“Where were you?” he growls; the grip he has on her shoulders is a familiar one, and the bruises he’s leaving are merely replications of those left once before. “Answer me, Iris!! _Where_ were you?”

“Out.” She answers, and a ripple of admiration teases his fury. Afraid, terrified of him— _him_! The man she loves, the man whose ring she wears!—and still she stands defiant against the devil’s own rage.

“Out.” He repeats, the word quivering off his tongue. “ _Away_ , you mean. Away from here. Away from _me_ …And how many times have you gone away? How many times have you left me here? How many times have I been alone, without you here, and never the wiser? How many? _How many_ , Iris??”

“Victor, for God’s sake,” her eyes are searching him, seeking answers when she won’t just ask the questions, “calm—”

“ _No_!” he slams her against the door again; she visibly winces this time, and some small part of him is waiting for a knock at the door and some nosy little rat to demand answers for all the racket. “Don’t tell me to calm down! You have no idea…no idea how _empty_ this place is. Cold. Lifeless. _Worthless_. You have no idea—”

“—I would, if you would _talk_ to me!!” she throws both hands against him with enough force to upset his balance. “But you will not! You prefer to bury yourself in some god-forsaken pit of despair! If you do not wallow away in this room, starved and wasted to a corpse, you will rot in the prison of your mind. Now, before you decide it is better to lie with a corpse, take your hands off me and _talk to me_!”

Talk…and say what? Tell her of a place where time doesn’t exist and the impossible is a beautiful reality and a child lives and breathes while her mother is only some distant memory? The old bird already has it in her head that he’s insane, more animal than man. Telling her even a few scant details will remove any doubt of it.

“I…” his voice trembles again, a world apart from Gotham’s demon of the shadows; her words press on his mind, to let her go before he hurts her, before he breaks her, but logic is beyond his comprehension now. He can’t let her go. He has to have her. He has to hold her. Feel her. Touch her. He must know she’s _real_.

Iris gasps softly, this time when he buries his face in her throat and wraps himself around her until there isn’t a breath between them. “I lost her.” He finishes in a broken whisper. “She was there. We were together. Everything was…perfect. And now she’s gone.”

He feels the tremor of Iris’ pulse against his temple; it’s a soothing rhythm, a sorely-missed melody in his ear. “Who is _she_?” her voice whispers from above; he feels each word. “Who are you talking about?”

His brow presses deeper into her shoulder. Across his inner eye, he sees golden curls spiraling like sunlight and blue eyes shimmering like jewels; he hears the delicate sound of laughter, and for a fleeting moment, he feels the gentle weight of her young form wrapped securely in his arms.

“Our daughter.”

***

“Our daughter.” Victor whispers, voice sinking deep into her skin; never before has he seemed less like a man and more like a hollow corpse, slumped in her arms without weight. The words linger in the air for a minute, then crawl deep in her ears and burrow in her head until she hears them in a relentless mantra: _Our daughter…Our daughter…Our…_

_“Do you think we made a baby?”_

Her legs forfeit the ability to support her; only the door at her back serves as support while they both drop to the floor, without grace, and stay there in a tangled mass of limbs. She’s not sure whose belong to who, and even less sure that it really matters right now.

_Our daughter._ A daughter. A baby girl, half of her and half of Victor. The best of them both, molded in perfect synchronicity. And he…while she sat at his bedside, hatred and grief churning like acid in her gut, he was in a different place, in a safe place, a better place, with their…their…

“Victor,” she whispers, hands gently braced at his waist, “stand up. Stand up and come with me.”

“…Where?” it takes him a minute to respond verbally, and even longer to force cooperation out of his limbs. When he is finally standing, she’s still supporting him, lest he drop like a lead weight again.

“Come with me.” She repeats, avoiding details for the time. Her arms slip around his waist, a gesture that others will see as affectionate and never guess it’s the only way she can guarantee he’ll follow. “Follow me, my tiger. Everything will be alright.”

***

Finally. Everything is clear again.

The first one, he blitzed with a back-alley brick. It split the man’s skull like an orange peel and dropped him without further incident. The others—three of them, two women and another man…it must have been a double-date night—noticed very quickly. The little lambs bleated. The remaining male charged forward, reckless and stupid as a brute. He didn’t even notice the knife until it was buried in his gut.

Like mice, the girls cower behind the dumpster, as if the sound of their quaking little cries can somehow be silenced by its barrier. With each step, broken glass crunching beneath his soles, he hears the whimpering. The choked sobs. He can smell their perfume. He can smell their sweat. He can smell their fear.

They’re huddled together in a filthy corner, tears hot down their cheeks. “Why…?” one, a petite blonde, whimpers. “W-Why are you…d-d-doing this?”

“Shhh…” he croons; fingers reach out and slide deep within her hair, grip solid despite the way she tries to jerk away from him, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ll just feel a little pinch.”

Alright, maybe there’s more than a little pinch. But it doesn’t really matter. She and her little friend aren’t alive to call him a liar.

He pops the necessary buttons on his shirt and lets his fingers find a suitable patch of skin. His knife makes the first cut. Blood trickles hot and wet down his skin. Pain stings a sharp path across his nerves.

Clarity. Glorious, wholesome, clarity.

***

Iris is two blocks away, leaning against the wall of a little tourist bar. She’s not quite dressed for the cool night, and even at a distance he can see her shiver at a passing breeze. He sees the ripple of loose black strands caught on the wind. He sees the elegant porcelain profile of uncovered skin. He sees every last detail cast in radiant perfection, highlighted half in gold streetlamps and half in silver moonlight.

He also sees the wandering gaze of too many men. Fortunately, that is easily rectified.

The sweep of his jacket over her shoulders speaks volumes without a single word. His clothing shelters her from the cold. The fabric carries his scent, and now his scent settles deep in her skin. He closes the distance between them, hiding her from the wanting glare of these mindless beasts who see and lust and think her some cheap evening thrill with open legs for the right price.

It’s not enough.

She sighs, deeply, into his mouth, into his kiss, and melts into his embrace with arms winding fast around him. Her taste coats his tongue like fine wine. Her skin is silk under his touch. Her scent wafts in his senses. Warmth floods him with familiarity. Like coming home after so long away…

“Marry me.” He whispers, when the need for air outweighs the need to kiss her.

“I already said yes.” She murmurs, chasing him for another kiss. He lets himself be caught, only for a moment, then pulls away once more.

“Here. Now.”

Her eyebrows lift, just enough to be exasperated without irritated. Unlike his first proposal, she isn’t surprised. He wonders, perhaps, if she’ll never again be surprised by anything he does. “You do appreciate, of course,” she says, fingers gliding most pleasantly over his chest, “I will catch hell from my family for eloping like this.”

“I don’t care.” He says, and he most definitely doesn’t. “I’m tired of waiting. I want you. I need you. I _love_ you.”

She shakes her head, but she doesn’t try putting distance between them (as if he’d let her) before releasing a heavy sigh. “It has been a long night, _moy tigr_.” She murmurs. “We should get back. Unless, of course, you see someone else to satisfy your fancy.”

The impertinent pig who gawked at her is a tempting little side dish. He tucks a thin smile into her hairline with his next kiss. She tilts her head into it, just for a minute, nuzzling below his chin in the process. He nearly purrs, but if he starts that, they’ll end up making a scene in public. Instead, his mouth drags a warm path to her ear, dragging his teeth in place for emphasis.

“Don’t wait up.”

***

It starts right after that night: this fog which kept Victor in its snare for so long now takes her as its next victim. Depression and insomnia don’t plague her in the same way, which isn’t to say they don’t assault her, because they do. Sleep comes and goes without consistency. Her stomach becomes very selective of what food will and will not be accepted. And her heart…

It’s strange. She waits for the tears to come, for the grief burning hot in her veins to manifest in diluted streams down her face. It doesn’t, which makes things worse. For the first time in her life, she wishes for tears, just to get it out and over with. But they don’t come. And so she’s left with nothing but a gaping hole in her heart. An emptiness which, logically, makes no sense. She feels as though she’s carried life and simultaneously lost it. A nursery and cemetery.

The worst part comes from her inability to shut out the world around her. Victor’s isolation the past weeks finally makes sense to her, when every auditory and visual sensation carries the same burrowing sting of a paper cut nestled deep under the skin. She can’t go down to the hotel lounge without seeing people. Without seeing families. Cozy little units of three and four (sometimes even five) laughing together. Eating together. Sharing each other’s space willingly, without reluctance or disdain for the other’s existence.

_Love_ , and yet every part of her wants to spit on the thought. There is no _love_ in family. The two are warring concepts, antonyms at best. She knows this. She’s always known this.

But if…No. There is nothing else. The happiness around her, emitting from those people—fathers, mothers, children—is a lie. It’s all a lie. Love from parent to child is…is a lie. She knows it’s true. She knows it.

So why is she crying?

“Here you go, Mrs.” The bartender offers, handing her a glass of red wine. She didn’t order it, but the chivalrous gesture isn’t one to go unappreciated. “Lil’ pick-me-up. On the house.”

What does he want from her? A moment of coy flirtation? Perhaps even more? A private moment away from prying eyes? A—

…what is _wrong_ with her?

“Mommy!” Across the lobby, the title rings out like a bell; a brown-eyed little cherub runs for her mother’s open arms. There is no request made, no legitimate reason for her to rush forward in such a manner, only the desire to throw her vulnerable self into an embrace. She enters her mother’s arms, and there is no fear. There is no doubt. There is only trust: these arms will never hurt her.

“I love you, Mommy!” the little girl declares, loud for all to hear. Her mother laughs, and kisses her cheeks without care. She calls her daughter _Darling_.

Mommy. Mommy. _Mommy…_

She’s crying again. The tears tinge her wine with salt. She pushes it away. A sob racks her body, stifled in her palm, and the tears pool hot around her hand.

Family…love…it’s just all a lie. There is only emptiness within the family unit. Distrust. Anger. Ultimately, there is hatred. It’s a vicious black hole of despair and pain, spiraling deeper and deeper until something—or some _one_ —breaks.

A few feet away, someone drops their glass. It sounds like a gunshot. A gunshot soon to be followed by five more. Her hand jerks violently and hits the wine. Crash— _Crack!_ Red liquid—blood, _blood everywhere_ —floods the countertop. _Drip. Drip. Drip._ On her hands. In her lap.

The bartender darts from one mess to another. Unlike the first, where it’s quite evident the responsible party has had one too many drinks tonight and is presently blabbering nonsense at unnecessary volume, she’s frozen in place. She needs to move away from the growing stain, but can’t. Blood. There’s blood. _There’s so much blood…_

A hand reaches out to dab at the mess on her hand. She recoils, stumbling slightly off her seat in the process. Behind her, like iron bars, a chest blocks her path and two arms wind fast around her. Instinct, fueled now into a frenzy, demands release, is prepared to bite and claw her way free…and then she catches the scent of copper, of metal.

“It’s been a long night,” Victor’s voice is faint, as if speaking from a distance and not right by her ear; how bitterly ironic that he’s now the calm one between them, “she’s just a little jumpy. I’ll take care of it.”

Charming as ever, not a waver on his tongue to suggest a lie; no one questions him, and fewer cast a second glance while he half-carries her out of the lobby. By the time they’re off the elevator, he has hoisted her in his arms, without a thought for how ridiculous the gesture must look in this place, and taking her back to the room with due haste.

In an unfortunate replication of many scenes before it, she finds herself deposited neatly in a hot bath, curled tightly under the steaming water, with Victor preparing to play caretaker, yet again. He reaches for her with one hand, the other already with soap in his grasp, and she darts away. A crease appears between naked brows, and she rarely can tell if it’s from anger or…something else.

“Iris,” he says; his voice is curiously low and patient, which can only mean there are considerable blood stains hidden within black fabric, “come here.”

“No.”

Now, he pauses, the extended hand slowly retreating back to his side. Both eyebrows are ascending on his face, and his throat locks tight around a swallow. “ _No_?”

“No.” she repeats; where, exactly, this new defiance is coming from, she hasn’t the faintest idea. “Not until you tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

She scowls at him. “Our child. Tell me about our child.”

A cloud descends over his expression, pooling thick in his eyes. He slowly stands up, abandoning his task, but retreat is not in her plans. A hand shoots out from the water, seizes his wrist, and jerks him back to her without prelude. The time for subtlety and whimpered pleadings is long-since past. She may be an emotional wreck, but she cried all her tears over his lifeless body. She has no more left to shed.

“You will not walk away from me.” She growls; the wolf claws from within, prepared to either take his throat or mate with him right here and now (she’ll decide which one, later). “Not until you have told me about her.”

“Iris—”

“Answer me!” the desire seems to be leaning closer towards ripping his throat out, and in the process unleash all his secrets. “You had her, all to yourself, for days! Do not _dare_ keep her from me!” a rush of water crashes like ocean tides along the tub when she stands, keeping a vice grip on his wrist. “Tell me what she looks like. What she sounds like. Tell me about her dreams and her hopes and wishes. Tell me of her loves and hates and everything in between. Tell me about _my daughter_!”

The air seems to ring with her final words, but all she sees is the change in his gaze: the way he looks at her as though never having seen her before. She closes her eyes, briefly, then exhales sharply. “You do _not_ get to keep her for yourself, Victor.”

Silence, again. She hates silence. Despises it. And she especially hates it from him. Silence from him means he’s thinking, and there should be no thought involved in this. Just talk. _Talk, and don’t stop._

“She has my eyes.” He whispers, as if breathing out a great secret, and—inexplicably—she feels a long-awaited rush of pure relief crash over her.

***

He tells her more, in the following nights. Not over breakfast in the lounge, not during walks on the boardwalk, but within the quiet confines of the suite, beneath bedcovers, she stretched along his side with head nestled atop his chest, and he with arms secured around her waist and hands gliding through her hair. In her ear, he murmurs details that trickle in her ears with the warm comfort of a lullaby.

He tells her of a lovely creature with blue eyes and golden locks, and though his tone sounds mildly remorseful that the child bears little of Iris, she can’t be more grateful for it, when it means the child can never look like Maria. He tells her about the piano, and the love of Beethoven, and she smiles against his marked skin while phantom melodies play across her inner ear. He tells her about running barefoot through an endless field of lush green grass, and she feels a touch of sadness to think such a place will never exist in Gotham. He tells her about flying, with golden wings and sunlight marking her path, and she exhales slowly while tears prick her eyes. She sees an angel, descending from heaven to Earth, yet never truly confined to this place.

Finally, after a week of isolation, she convinces him to take a walk on the beach. It’s the kind of thing people do in movies and cheap television dramas. It also means coming into contact with people. Lots of people. Far too many people. But, damn it all, she’s never gone for a walk on the beach and she wants to do it.

They are an oddity to behold, always. Whether on the streets of Gotham or these sun-kissed beaches, they catch attention and hold it a minute or two. Sometimes, she isn’t sure because they’re dressed rather formally for the occasion (especially now), or because there is something about them, some strange aura circulating the air around them both, that attracts stares. Perhaps it is both.

***

At the conclusion of their second week, she wakes him with a slow kiss to the pulse and a leg slipping gracefully between his, while one hand glides down his chest too slowly to be by accident. A purr rumbles deep through his throat, and her venturing palm is quickly captured.

“Good morning to you too.” He says, voice still thick with remnants of sleep. She smiles into the next kiss, and pulls their joined hands to rest around his hips, without resistance or objection.

“Italy.”

“Hmm?”

Her smile broadens, just a bit. There is something oddly endearing about his half-asleep state; perhaps simply because it’s such a world apart from the calculating mind and razor-sharp precision he displays when fully awake. “Italy.” She repeats, with another kiss, this one below his jaw.

He groans softly, then shifts onto his back. “Stop.” He mumbles. “You know I can’t think when you do that.”

“Why else would I do it?” she murmurs, nibbling in place of more kisses. His next groan sends a lick of flame down her spine. _Focus._

“Ah, so this is your new plan then.” He smirks a bit, finally opening his eyes and facing her on the other side. “Manipulation of my baser needs in order to earn compliance, no matter the request.”

It’s her turn to smirk. “Sorry to disappoint, _mon amour_ ,” she answers, quite satisfied when his eyes flash in a familiar way, “but there will be none of that until this waiting game comes to an end.”

“You know I’m not responsible for myself when you speak French…” he reaches for her; she scoots back, nearly to the edge just to make the point.

“I pardon your complete lack of self-containment when I speak my native tongue, _moy tigr_.” She says; his eyes blaze fire this time. “You get no other excuses. Now, for the third time…Italy.”

He gives her a look for the little tease, but otherwise huffs a low breath and sits up. The sheets pool low on his hips, and it takes her a second to ignore his renewed habit of sleeping naked. “Not Paris?” he inquires, sounding vaguely amused. “Wherever is your sense of romance?”

“Paris is overrated.” She dismisses; that’s not the primary reason, of course, but the glimmer in his eyes tells her he understands. “Besides, Italy is just as romantic. The vineyards. The fountains shimmering under sunlight. The wine, the food…the desserts.”

His smirk returns. “You strike a hard bargain.” One arm extends, and she obliges without resistance this time. “Of course, you should make the call to your family—”

“—soon to be _your_ family.” She reminds, playfully.

His mouth twitches. “ _My_ family is limited to my wife and child. Life is simpler that way.”

She doesn’t push the point, so he continues, “Make the call to your family and tell them your vacation will be prolonged. I intend no less than two weeks for our honeymoon.”

“We will not be staying in bed all that time, Victor.” She says, cocking an eyebrow. “I have a city to run when we return.”

“I’ll keep you intact.” He purrs, teasing two fingers across her shoulder.

“Victor,” she sighs, lower lip trembling just a little while she delicately settles in his lap, “I have never seen Italy before. My husband would not deny me one of Europe’s crowning jewels, would he?”

“Vixen.” He accuses softly, half a second before he buries his mouth in her throat. She shivers, one hand gripping his shoulder. A protest, reminding him of her earlier conviction, falls off her tongue, but it’s lacking the conviction for which she was hoping, especially now that his—what did she call it…? Oh yes, “lack of self-containment”—is a very insistent presence between them. Serves her just fine for pressing the point.

_Focus. **Focus.**_

“Victor, stop.” She pushes both hands against his shoulders and leans back. He obliges with her command, but the glower on his face says everything. She tries a different tact. “Please, my tiger…think of our wedding night.”

He rolls his eyes and leans back on one arm, still looking none-too-pleased. “You will pay for this on that night, my love. Remember that.”

He’s halfway out of bed when her hands grip his shoulders, again, and toss him back into the pillows. The brief flash of surprise, especially when her hand shoves the sheets aside, renews her smile and her satisfaction. “What?” she croons, slowly inching her way down with a kiss here and there, “Did you think I would be so cruel as to just _leave_ you like this?”


End file.
